


same empty feeling (feeling restless again)

by ArcReactorsandDragons



Series: same empty feeling [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, France - Freeform, Gen, Harry never gets his letter, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcReactorsandDragons/pseuds/ArcReactorsandDragons
Summary: The Dursley's flee to France when the letters come along by force.They don't get any in France.They stay.Harry never learns of what could have been a reprieve from his life.Harry learns of his bad blood by Petunia and his worthlessness by Vernon.He makes a vow to be better than his parents in a dimly lit room with a catflap.PROLOGUE
Series: same empty feeling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641874
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	same empty feeling (feeling restless again)

Lily and James go down as martyrs. Lily is known as the mother who sacrificed everything for her son, and James as the father who did everything to protect his family. Which  _ is  _ true. But being reduced to war propaganda is not anyone really wants to be unless they go into a situation knowing that will happen, (and even not in those circumstances, but at least then they knew it). James did not think about the way his face would be painted across every newspaper, but how his Son would grow up without him, Lily did not think about the way she would be only “Lily Potter”, for the rest of her life, her Muggleborn status never mentioned, only that at least her last moments would be loving her son. 

Harry isn't angry about any of this, because Harry  _ doesn't kno _ w. What he knows is Lily and James were unemployed drunks whose degenerate lifestyle was their end. And the young 5 year old boy who was summoned up the courage to ask that, was sent to his cupboard believing this because he didn't know anything else in his life. 

Let's pretend for a moment, in this perfect world, that Harry  _ does _ know, that he finds out from a slip of the tongue, or bet yet, Petunia tells him the truth, maybe everything goes differently. Maybe Harry can grow up with an intact self esteem and sense of belonging, knowing the truth, maybe he can hold a spark of hope inside him that not  _ everything  _ about him is awful. And that can change a lot about a person, knowing their self worth, it can make them happy, and knowing the truth means he won't cling to every scrap of  _ truth _ about them. (To him, they're just phantom figures in a dream that feels made up, they're a scrap of  _ light _ in the dark of the cupboard). 

But that doesn't happen, because Petunia is bitter and neglective and takes petty vindictive pleasure in telling a boy that his parents were good for nothing freaks just like him. Because the world isn't always that good and  _ boy  _ does Harry know it. Harry instead of growing up knowing his worth, grows up thinking he  _ has  _ to be better than his parents, because of he can't, what is he really? How can he  _ not  _ be better than two people who killed themselves drunk driving? 

It goes like this: Harry makes a vow one day to be better than his parents, in anyway, shape or form, even if living past twenty-one is that way. So he clings on to that fact that he has to  _ live,  _ if nothing else. So he does, at the moment he's really just surviving, however, he doesn't know the difference, so that's how it goes. 

***

Harry is eleven and he doesn't understand. He  _ knows _ he's hated. He  _ knows  _ he isn't allowed anything of his  _ own.  _ He  _ knows  _ he gets what he gets because he's a  _ freak.  _

He doesn't understand why the Dursley's are running to France with Harry in tow, making sure for one in his life, Harry is  _ never _ forgotten behind at a rest stop or coffee shop. 

They drive the four hours to Dover and never look back, (he found out he does actually have a passport that's forced into his hands during the security check). 

(He glances at the photo and cringes because the photo looks happy in a way that looks like he's trying to hide terror (he is)).

They enter France but the Dursley’s don't look relaxed until they reach the flat that is given them by Vernon’s company while they find a place to live. 

(Some of the happiest memories of Petunia Evans’ childhood is Lily reading Hogwarts: A History our loud in the garden before Lily’s first year and Petunia’s descent into bitterness. It turns out that if you enter France (or any of the other European countries), you are automatically invited to Beauxbatons instead and removed from the Hogwarts rota. (It's a loophole that Petunia pointed out at the time, and is thankful for now)). 

They get a single letter from Beauxbatons asking if they would like to attend, with an area for answer at the bottom of the parchment, Vernon scratches out a ‘NO’ with a biro and sends the owl off with a swat to its back, it nips his fingers and flies off with a resentful glare. 

Harry is none the wiser. 

When he says that he doesn't understand, Vernon only sneers at him, ”Of course you don't,  _ freak _ , you're too  _ stupid  _ to understand  _ anything _ .”

His insults are simple and petty but to an eleven year old boy it's a lot. Comments like that make Harry so simply  _ angry  _ it's hard to explain. Because, he  _ is  _ smart, he was once the smartest in the year before Vernon threatened bodily harm if he continued to show up Dudley, (he harmed Harry no matter what, and resentment began to boil within the 7 year old who had full marks on his Maths homework). He  _ does  _ understand why the Dursleys hate him in a way that is never explained to him until the sudden realisation was that he's  _ different _ . 

And that's all it takes. One look at him versus the Dursley's is an obvious tell that he does not belong. With black hair, bronze skin and striking green eyes that often show scaredness more often than not does not fit in with the fair haired, red cheeked Dursley's, who belittle with words and fists and contempt for his very presence. 

Harry is  _ alone.  _

And moving to Neuilly, the suburbs of Paris near the city centre and away from Surrey, does not help. 

Because he knew what to expect in that primary school, with the quiet kids who would tolerate his presence and the bully's who would follow Dudley if the boy decided he'd like to play ‘Harry Hunting’, knew when to run and the surroundings and how to manoeuvre into the tightest of places to escape his grasp. Here was difference, here was tall and noisy, a house tightly fitted into the buildings all around, not a big enough garden to put to work properly, (they make him do it anyway, they'll have the best damned looking roses in all of France). The language was foreign and though he grasped it pretty well when he was sent with Dursley to secondary school nearer the centre, he was told not to be pretentious and to ‘drop that silly accent before I beat it out of you’. 

He made new impressions. They were worse. Because these kids never knew Harry as a kid, never took pity on the skinny kid who never had any snacks while his cousin stuffed himself with crisps and chocolate bars, never grew up with him and never saw the way he became so much quieter over the years. 

Instead he was known as the new kid, the weird cousin of the  _ other _ new kid, who spreads rumours of Harry being bad luck and  _ dumb  _ and a few french terms he'd picked out of a dictionary. 

Left absolutely alone, with no awareness of a world that desperately needed him. 

But life continues, Harry cleans the house, weeds the back garden and only leaves for school. Vernon leaves in the morning and comes back in the evening, ready with an insult for the “idiot French” he had to work with and a cuff around the ear for Harry when he doesn't bring his Uncle his whiskey quick enough. Petunia still introduces herself to the neighbours in a way she thinks is polite, but is just annoying, especially when she refuses to even speak the language. 

Harry forgets all about the letters that flew through the door, the owls that seemed just  _ too _ intelligent, the snake that spoke to him and the shadow of the cat who turned into a woman. 

Instead he glimpses the sight of a mirror showing what he wants most. He knows it's a reflection of _ someone.  _ Of a young man with dark hair and jewel blue eyes with a scholarly face and power in his eyes. It feels like him. Like,  _ Harry _ . Like the face he sees in the nightmares filled with flashes of green and red hair falling flat. Feels like a missing part of  _ something _ . 

At Hogwarts life continues, Harry doesn't show up on the train, Ron sits nexts to Neville and Hermione by herself. Draco doesn't make himself an enemy, nor any other friends outside the circle of purebloods he grew up with. Quirrel still goes after the stone and a Troll is still let loose in the dungeon, where Neville feels bad for what happens and tries to find her after Quirrel collapses. The stress makes Neville master the Wingardium Leviosa spell and Hermione his friend. Harry Potter isn't mentioned apart from whispers across the older years, until the slip of the tongue by a Gryffindor professor is heard. But life continues. Hagrid cries and Snape is worse than usual because the Potter boy not being there is a stark reminder that his past is still affecting him to this day, and the mistakes he made are coming back to haunt him. 

Harry is eleven and lonely. He's a small scrap of a kid who starts to fill out on the rich French food and the fact that Social Services are called when the neighbours see that kid with the not-just-skinny-but-starving look dressed in rags next to his obese cousin. So Petunia gives him a proper packed lunch for school instead of just burnt remains; just like that, with the bare minimum nutrients, Harry grows, he fills out and becomes taller. Petunia gives him new clothes that don't drown him and though are still too big look  _ okay  _ on him. They don't have a cupboard under the stairs in this house, instead they give the smaller of the two bedrooms to Harry, and fill it with second-hand furniture. 

(They convince the women everything is alright and Harry grins and says he gets into a lot of fights at school because this change is  _ very upsetting for him, (he’s an orphan you see),  _ but he’s trying his hardest, he’s very sorry for any disturbance. The women in a neat suit with blonde hair in a neat bun at the nape her neck believes it. Says they’ll send someone to check on them in a couple months.)

(It occurs to Harry to tell the truth, tell them about the ring of bruises that seem permanently pressed into his bicep, so often had his Uncle dragged him into his room by the arm, they never seemed to fade, tell them of the insults and the cupboard under the stairs, (he wasn’t stupid, he knew it wasn’t exactly like other families, like how other children are treated, but he isnt like other children), but that would change so much, andhe would never be left alone and left to live. So he goes along.)

So what it's old and a little rickety and the wardrobe door doesn't close properly and the chair is missing a wheel and he's actually too short of the child's bed they got him, the wall is a sickly grey colour and the mirror has a crack spider webbing through the corner, and there's  _ actual  _ spiderwebs filling every corner because they don't dust this room,  _ it's his.  _ It's bigger than a cupboard! It has a proper duvet that might be thin and stained and two, two! Pillows. He doesn't really have enough things to fill up the room, but he  _ does _ reverently sets the soldiers he rescued from his cupboard along the windowsill and folds his T-shirt's in the drawers and places his pot of half working pens and blunt pencils on his desk. The room is  _ his _ , he has  _ property _ , and it feels amazing. He no longer  _ has  _ to curl up in a ball because the cupboard walls restrict his movement and it's the only way to fit under the blanket. (He does curl up in the fetal position still, but that's more to do with the fact it feels more safe, with his internal organs protected by the scarred expanse of his back). 

(There's a cat flap on the door for when they lock him in the room for long periods of time. If he ignored that, he can pretend it's a normal room.) 

Harry is eleven and hurt but this little space of his, makes it bearable. No matter what life will be the same and Harry just has to his head down and bear it, but sometimes it grants small mercis like a packed lunch every week day and space to call his own and stretch and  _ live _ , and a new language to learn to stave off boredom and an active non-stop mind. He thanks Petunia Vernon for the food as if it is a luxury not a necessity, and for the room and does his chores without complaint, eat his burnt crust of toast and retires to his bedroom each night to do his homework at a deliberately low standard, and bears the verbal and physical abuse hurled at him most days without crying, as crying was a weakness, Vernon said often. No tears have been shed since he was five. Harry prefers it this way, it is predictable and its routine and there are no new things to disrupt it, if he just keeps his head down. 

Until of course life throws something at him that will change all of it. 

2 

The street that they live on is very nice indeed, Petunia wouldn't call it  _ perfect _ , no that had been 24 Privet Drive where she knew the neighbours and how to manipulate gossip around them, but it was pretty ideal. 

Pavements with grass lined on the outside, a boxed tree that was maintained by the council, that bloomed with yellow and pink flowers in the spring, the pavement was almost spotless and no litter was thrown ever along the path. Their house had two stories with an attic, four bedrooms with an en-suite attached to the master bedroom and a bathroom in the hall. The kitchen was adequate, big enough that it wasn't cramped, but too small for Harry to  _ really  _ cook something nice. Attached to the kitchen was a dining room, where a door led out into the back garden, filled with methodically maintained flowers and plants that Harry has painstakingly cared for. The living room led off from the main hall and had a doorway from the kitchen/dining room. Perfect tile and creamy carpet, countertops and tables that never let dust settle on them. It was all perfect inside. (Apart from the smallest bedroom where just entering made you feel more repressed, the dirty sheets and bare walls felt loved by only one inhabitant, but they ignored that area as much as possible, only Vernon went inside to discipline the boy). 

At the moment they were dining with the family who lived across the street from them, a mother and father (Davide and Sandy) amd their twelve year old daughter (Emile), they were eating a lovely roast, (prepared by Harry of course,) with a cheesecake for desert (also Harry). Petunia laughs politely at a joke Davide says and Emile chats with Dudley who is trying his best not to make an obscene joke. Vernon is talking football scores with whoever will listen and Harry is sat in his room keeping very silent while doing his maths homework (fractions). 

“So,” Sandy swallows the perfect braised beef, “where is your other son? I've seen him walk to school with Dudley from time to time, why is he not dining with us?” 

(It might be worth mentioning that it is this couple that believed Harry to be abused and called Social Services. The Dursley's don't know this but they are trying to give a good impression to all their neighbours, so why not start with the ones who believe you ugly of the soul). 

Petunia jumps to answer before anyone else, prim voice speaking loudly as if that would make it more believable, “My  _ nephew _ , is ill, stomach bug. He wanted to be here but we thought it best to stay in bed, the poor dear.” Petunia does not understand that the voice she puts on, sickly sweet and undeniably  _ fake _ , only makes it seem as if she is hiding something. 

“Well, you must come around for dinner here he’s better!” Sandy so ever sweetly says back, “we’ll postpone it until he's well again, after all we wouldn't want him to miss out at all”. 

They can't do anything but agree. 

It goes like this, they  _ all  _ dress up, Harry where something opaque to cover his bruises and foundation on his neck where a polo top doesn't cover. His hair is brushed too harshly but is eventually smoothed down into something slightly representable, he gets a new pair of trainers because his old ones look too “horrid”. 

They go in and it's a pleasant meal, of a bit strained, when Emile goes to the toilet they lean in and whisper that she's adopted, (it's kind of obvious, Emile’s tightly coiled black hair and dark skin tone next to their pale complexions shows they can't be related that closely), and because they're nice people who believe honesty is key, tell them that her mother died at birth and her father was unable to properly care for her because he no one would hire him. They believe honesty is key because too often has a parent judged their Emile for something she hasn't done, for something that shouldn't be held against her. They say, “we think it's amazing you took Harry in, I hope you are all settling down here okay?” 

And they're right to be upfront because it's obvious really that it  _ does  _ affect Petunia and Vernon who had blurred out earlier in the dinner what had happened to Harry's parents. Because it's the same problem, Petunia didn't like James not only for his magical disposition but also for the colour of his skin, and his curly dark brown hair, because Petunia had decided to hate everything that wasn't  _ normal _ , just because she  _ is _ normal. 

But it's during that dinner that Harry's eyes are opened. Sandy and Davide love Emile, it's obvious in the way they kiss her on the forehead when she yawns but says she can stay awake for longer, in the way they've decorated the house in her achievements and things she's made, (there's a macaroni art picture frame containing a grinning portrait of all three of them on the mantel in the living room, and Davide drinks coffee out of a homemade mug that has, “best dad evar” scrawled across the side in neon green paint), despite her parents.

And that's the life changing thing that life throws at Harry, the curveball, the moment that changes it all. The realisation that he should still be loved. That maybe he  _ doesn't  _ deserve all of what he's getting. That he doesn't only need new clothes or food for the pretense of a happy family. He needs them because he might be  _ worth something.  _

He spends the rest of the night on autopilot and barely notices the blows on his face when Vernon thinks his politeness is insolence. He barely notices that when he settles into the bed, when the moon shines as a full moon through the window (he had no blinds, he wakes up with the sun anyway), when the blanket heats up unnaturally around him, (it's the near the end of October and it's getting so cold), because there's a slow burning  _ rage  _ in his stomach that seems to just  _ grow.  _

The revelation that maybe he deserved more is like a slap in the face, more impactful than Vernons ever were. 

In another world, in another universe, Harry grows up to be a sweet boy, by nature of course, with all of Lily's fiery nature that shows he's not a pushover, merely kind to every person, feeling no need to step out of line unless need be. In another another world, in another another universe, Harry is a sweet boy, forced into a mold, that fits him almost correctly. He's kind because he doesn't want anyone else to be in the same position anyone else is, he doesn't step out of line because all experience with authority figures and peers shows that stepping out of line never bodes well for him. 

In this world, he is  _ not  _ a sweet boy. Here, in this French Secondary School, where he speaks French badly but with devotion caused by anger, with the need at home to be an obedient  _ freak _ , where he learns that staying in line causes the same amount of grief as running away from the line, where he has no friends and the loneliness doesn't eat away because he's used to it, (like a paper cut on your finger that isn't healing, you get used to the minute and sharp pain, never really noticing it), where the burning need to do  _ something  _ other than survive longer than twenty-one  _ festers  _ in him.

(He still tries to do that of course, because if he can't do what his parents can't, the people who caused this situation to begin with, (an eleven year old’s mind makes funny leap and bounds that might seem unfounded to others, but show deep thought to themselves), what is her really? Now, though, now he understands what caused them to live fast and die young, the need to do  _ something _ ).

These circumstances do not nurture a kind nature, but an angry one. 

Halloween comes and goes, Dudley still dresses up, (as Darth Vader), and Harry stays in his room all night, (at the end a packet of Skittles gets thrown through his door, he tries one and tosses the rest in the bin, after all he's never really had a sweet tooth, (read: never allowed sweets or chocolate or treats)). 

School is not any better, he sits by himself in the library, (the place where Dudley doesn't think to look), reading (trying to read, most of it  _ is  _ French after all) whatever book he can get his hands on. 

(In another world, Hagrid exclaims, “Poor boy! You don't know anything!” And Harry replies indignantly, “I know Maths”. In this world, Harry doesn't make it known that he’s pretty good at any academic subject, to be bullied at school for being a nerd as well as being  _ weak,  _ as being a  _ freak.  _ In this world he fails because there’s no point succeeding until the end of year exams.)

His glasses prescription is over four years old by now, it makes reading difficult, it makes walking difficult, it makes sports difficult and in short makes life difficult. He deals though, he has to. 

Christmas comes and goes. He gets a 50p coin and a list of chores ready for the Christmas meal, (which he cooks of course).

He thinks maybe that’s what he’s good at in life. It would be an awful irony of course, the thing that he’s been forced to do become the only thing he can ever do to get far in life. Of course, he does  _ enjoy  _ cooking, it’s just that doing it everyday for people who  _ do not _ even show appreciation for it kind of dampens the enjoyment. 

In the end, he decides no, cooking will not be the ting he’s good out. Too much anger in that. 

At the end of year exams he doesn’t do well. It’s no surprise to any of the teachers or to the Dursleys, who take pride in the fact they are right about his feeble minded state. The teachers sympathise with him, only slightly, they don’t like him but they appreciate the fact that he’s an English boy taking exams solely in French. He comes bottom of the class and knows next year he’ll be in the bottom set for French, English and Maths. 

The summer goes by too slowly. Compared to the school year where he gets respite from the Dursleys, there is no such thing. There’s no peace or relaxation, and the only thing that is different in France to Surrey is that their neighbours are watching them instead of the other way around. This causes a number of things: they feed him more. He’s allowed to give himself a small portion of whatever he’s cooking. He tends to the garden, but the fence is built higher to stop people from looking over, which means he’s bathed in shade over the summer, instead of the blistering sun, which usually does nothing but burn his skin and irritate his wounds, now it’s a small mercy to be in the garden. And he gets a small amount of free time, in the evening after his chores are done and dinner doesn’t need cooking yet, he gets to walk around the neighbourhood. Of course that usually ends up in ‘Harry Hunting’ in the local park. 

He comes back sporting visible bruises and because they’re made by Dudley they don’t matter that much. He’s known as the boy who gets into fights. They spread rumours he beats up the younger children. It sticks. 

His birthday comes and goes.   
  
3 

Near the end of summer a small elf-like creature appears in his room. He pretends it’s some kind of hallucination caused by blood-loss. It’s been known to happen. They don’t usually call him ‘Master Harry Potter Sir’, though. 

“Please, you can’t return to Hogwarts. Isn’t safe for you, Master Harry Potter Sir”, The little creature pulls at his long ears and looks so very pitiful in nothing but a pillowcase and bandages around burnt fingers. 

Harry’s heart weeps for the obviously scared  _ thing  _ standing in the middle of his room. 

“Would you like something to eat?” Harry asks, already fishing around in his drawers, “I’ve got some snackbars here.” He offers one out, “What’s Hogwarts?”

“Dobby knew that Harry Potter would be kind, oh yes! Not this kind! Dobby isn’t deserving of such niceness”, Dobby- he assumes that’s his name, looks wildly around until it settles on a lamp, and, in a second is bashing his head with the heavy metal end. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” Harry cries out, leaping over and trying to pry his fingers off, “I promise not to go to- Hogwarts? I promise not to go to Hogwarts!” 

Dobby peers suspiciously at him, “You promise?” 

Harry nods fervently back, “I promise!” 

Dobby disappears. 

Harry goes to sleep and when he wakes up ignores it. It's better to just accept it really. Accept it and move on. 

The rest of the year passes in a monotone rhythm like the rest of his life has. It's dark and dim and he gets the empty feeling inside sometimes where all his feelings go and he lies on the bed or weeds the garden or does his homework. It's a relief sometimes, remembering that not always will he have this sleuth of emotions bombarding him. 

It's better than the sadness and the tears he's not allowed to cry. 

Just before he turns thirteen, the news shows a mass murderer escaped in Britain. Petunia tuts and worries and Harry ignores it. 

It's getting easier everyday to do that. To block everything out and wait for a time where he won't be  _ here _ . Won't be  _ stuck _ in the house, in France. With the Dursleys. 

He longs for a time where he's no longer dependant on Petunia, on having his dependency thrown in his face. 

He’s thirteen and he wants out. 

  
  



End file.
